The forces behind Facebook are not only cracking down on the amount of spam that’s tainting the world’s most popular social networking platform, they’re also giving app developers a veritable spam report card to raise awareness about user feedback.

For some time now, Facebook has been closely monitoring (via spam-fighting bots) and yanking any and all apps that have received significantly negative user feedback.

But the overzealous bots eventually started penalizing much too harshly the developers who were largely left in the dark about why their updates were raising red flags, getting blocked, and causing all sorts of related problems.

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The following is the weekly guest series by Derek Johnson, Founder & CEO of SMS marketing software Tatango.

At Tatango we use the Mobile Marketing Association’s (MMA) U.S. Consumer Best Practices as any Christian would use the bible. This document guides every company’s decision in the world of mobile marketing and is looked to daily for both insight and resolution.

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According to the startling findings of a recent and thoroughly eye-opening Direct Marketing Association survey, 43% or respondents have received “unsolicited SMS spam promoting accident claims or mis-selling financial services.”

The sobering reality for SMS is that spammers have quickly latched on to the emerging marketing tactic to such a degree that it now threatens the future growth of this otherwise red-hot and widely embraced advertising platform.

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On Monday, Verizon raised the curtain on “Net Safety Tips On The Go,” a mobile app that the wireless carrier is calling the first-ever digital safety and security advice app for Android smartphones.

The app is being released in conjunction with National Internet Safety Month.

Verizon, however, isn’t taking the lone share of credit for the new offering. As it turns out, the app was developed by Google and Verizon. The companies worked with several online safety education organizations to make the app possible.

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New security threats are mounting by the day for smartphone users, say the mobile and computing safety experts at Intel’s McAfee.

As a result of hackers increasingly taking aim at mobile devices, security software providers are experiencing what some consider to be the “golden age” of their industry as consumers flock to their products and services at a record-setting pace to shield their treasured phones from nefarious bugs and other attacks.

Infonetics forecasts sales of mobile security software to spike 50% on an annual basis through 2014, becoming a $2 billion business.

“The mobile security market will one day be bigger than that of computers,” Neil Rimer, co-founder of Index Ventures, tells Reuters. “It’s a no-brainer that people will pay to protect their devices, and the market will not be owned by one big player.”

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It’s been reported that Jiffy Lube has been caught sending text messages to customers who hadn’t opted-in to receive advertising.

Derek Johnson, CEO of Tatango, wrote a blog post recently explaining that he’d received over a dozen calls from people in the Seattle area complaining of random SMS messages sent by Jiffy Lube promoting a “1-time offer” for its “eClub” along with a 45% discount on an oil change service.  The campaign was sent nationwide to an unknown amount of recipients.

As Johnson points out, however, Jiffy Lube might not be 100% to blame for the mixup.  ”While this definitely has hurt Jiffy Lube, I wouldn’t put all the blame on them,” he said in the post.  ”The rules and regulations for text message advertising are extremely confusing and most big corporations work with an SMS provider to launch their campaign.  It looks like whoever Jiffy Lube was using gave them the wrong information and lead them down this destructive path.”

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In the first large-scale filing of its kind, the FTC is suing an alleged spammer accused of sending millions of SMS messages to non-subscribed users.

The lawsuit, filed late last month in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleges that the spammer, Phillip Flora, sent millions of unsolicited text messages to consumers advertising loan modification and debt-relief programs.  In one 40-day period starting in August of 2009, Flora allegedly sent 5.5 million such messages.  In addition, Flora sent millions of unsolicited email messages to consumers promoting his deceptive “SMS marketing services.”

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